Rice contributes to promising study on blocking breast cancer tumor growth

Researchers from Rice University, in cooperation with an international team, recently published a study examining how blocking the overexpression of the NAF-1 protein could prevent breast cancer tumor growth.
 
Overexpression of NAF-1, a protein that transports clusters of iron and sulfur molecules in cells, results in breast cancer tumors that are more tolerant to oxidative stress and, therefore, become larger and more aggressive.
 
Researchers found that treating the tumor with pioglitazone, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, controls NAF-1 levels and reduces tumors’ tolerance to oxidation. They also found that a single-point mutation of NAF-1 similarly prevented tumor proliferation.
 
“Now that we know tumors that overexpress this protein are more sensitive to this type of drug, we can design new drugs in a way that will attack the clusters,” University of North Texas professor of biological sciences Ron Mittler said. “We now have examples of five or six different types of tumors that need this protein to proliferate. If they don’t have it, they die.”
 
The study included Rice’s co-director of the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics José Onuchic, Rice research scientist Mingyang Lu, and Rice postdoc Fang Bai. The study also included researchers from Israel, the University of California San Diego and the University of North Texas.